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Kali. Winds of change and transformation

By: Marjory Mejia

Goddess Kali Colored etching on paper. 1770 Print

Have you ever felt the forces of the universe storm through your life breaking the very foundation you thought carried you around? Has Kali or Oya graced your life with destruction of the old to such degree that you no longer recognize the now wild but once conquered landscape of your being?

These are goddesses who cut through the unnecessary garbage in our lives that we dare not release for fears of never reaching our dreams. They infuse us with madness to let go of everything ready to be composted. They are just clearing the way to make us ready for the new. Sometimes painful, sometimes exhilarating, their work clears and creates networks needed for more joy to flow!!

They cut off our heads full of ego trips that keep us in eternal limbo. This is life bringing us to our knees to kiss the earth in gratitude for this precious opportunity to be alive.  They bring our life to ruins so we can start again, destroying our sick foundations to rebuild us.  It’s a fresh start to feel alive, reclaiming our true nature hiding behind false temples. Now these false temples are rubble on the ground. Let’s just immerse our numb hands in the waters of the Earth and cleanse them of our own poisoning.

Priestess Luisah Teish beautifully explains how Oya is the warrior queen of the Winds of Change against stagnation, and affirms that she

“will shake your soul loose from its foundation; hurl you from the tower of false pride, sweep you clean of debris and madness, and plant you on fresh ground.” ~Luisah Teish

The winds of change will take us on a whirlwind ocean journey where we will experience Kali:

“…Indivisible Reality, Awareness, and Bliss…The infinite is always mysteriously dark. This inebriating darkness is my beloved Kali.” -Sri Ramakrishna

What is it to emancipate ourselves and claim our power as we dissolve in darkness? Life is constantly presenting us with oxymorons that defy all logic. These moments charged with poetic nature break through the static codes of imposed meaning. This is breakthrough time with the thorough breaking of barriers veiling our precious hearts. We die and dissolve to be reborn and grow from a place of connection.

This is the Dark Goddess bringing the winds of change that we once feared. This is Her not waiting or accepting any excuses, masks, or armor any longer. This is Her stripping us naked, throwing us on the ground so we can feel the Earth again.

And in this surrender we find a lost love. In this baring of our body and soul we feel our heart beating again. Once the storm has passed through, our landscape will never look the same. Smiling, laughing, imagining; there is nothing to hide and nowhere to hide anymore. We see the old torn to pieces to reveal new possibilities latent with life.

No more running, escaping, lying, fighting, trying, or faking in the perpetual shielding of our essence. Just acceptance of what is left intact and strong in our heart through all this dissolution. What survives such destruction is what propels it. This pregnant moment is pulsing with life.

When the Dark Goddess grabs us, we will feel her fierceness and will be taken. Possessed with the power to see our life anew, old structures will first crumble like ill formed buildings falling to the ground.

What can not bear life, will die and no questions will be asked. We might think we have a say in this matter but we better just feel this force run through us and wisely step out of the way for it will cause more chaos if we resist.

Swimming in chaos, disorder, darkness, dreamtime, formlessness and unborn potential; we will come to know these qualities intimately like our own body. They will no longer scare us as we give in and get seduced with their magic and mystery. We surrender to the great, dark and fierce Mother as we are devoured and transformed into new form.

Naturally, where there was only concrete strangling life, raw nature will take over and grow all around. Welcome it and be grateful that it knows we need this sacred flow, this breath of fresh air, of life force, of energy. Our wild essence is emerging, nature finding nature.  There is an explosion, a big bang in our heart and in our whole being. Now there is all this life where there was nothingness before.

Not so fast. There is beauty in this preliminary emptiness. The space in between release and absorption, the moment between the inhale and exhale; it is this realm between worlds forming a threshold that takes us deep inside. Can we relax in this blank canvas state? Soon we will be reflecting color and splashing some paint. But can we now admire the vast darkness from which everything is born? Will we dive in? And what will we find? Or what will find us? What mysterious encounters will occur? We feel that we plunged, that we leaped, but there was no choice really. This realm reclaimed us and we will in fact revel in it. Enjoy this passage where the male deity Shiva praises Kali:

Because Thou devourest Kala [time], Thou art Kali, the original form of all things, and because Thou art the Origin of and devourest all things Thou art called the Adya [primordial Kali]. Resuming after Dissolution Thine own form, dark and formless, Thou alone remainest as One ineffable and inconceivable. Though having a form, yet art Thou formless; though Thyself without beginning, multiform by the power of Maya, Thou art the Beginning of all, Creatrix, Protectress, and Destructress that Thou art.

~ Mahanirvana-tantra

We secretly yearn for this undoing. Seeing us as the flower that resists its own blooming; She comes and shakes the earth, her body, to awaken the flower to its own nature. We start to hear fierce animals roaring, or is it our heart roaring, coming alive with its primal voice?

Winds of change demand complete surrender. The winds have ceased now and the waters are calming down. Now the locked treasures of the deep waters are resurfacing to adorn the beautiful structures yet to be born as living organisms from the earth. These treasured jewels are precious and sacred; they speak of old tales and ancient lands; untouched by anything, they shimmer with light like long lost jewels cleansed in ocean waters.

I trusted the shadows that haunted me endlessly, until I descended into the primordial darkness and emerged reborn. They now dissipate like clouds revealing a clear blue sky illuminated with sunshine.

May we embrace the winds of change and may all our treasures resurface and light the way,

Marjory